The first snow of the season is now on the Mission Mountains.

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First snow! My first inclination was to think it early, but just because we’re still sweating down here doesn’t mean to the rest of the country is. On the other hand, we’re past the equinox, and even here the light is changing. The color in your first photo of the trail is beautiful – not only autumnal trees give pleasure. OH! and I just found the lookout cabin atop the peak in the second photo. Oh, my.

Those repairs look pretty recent – I think I see fresh wood chips, and obviously new logs.

The huckleberry bushes are among the first signs of the changing season in the high country. These still had a few ripe berries on them but most were drying up.

The lookout cabin is being restored as a project of Passports in Time. I presume that it will then be in the rental list of lookout cabins. Access is by a very good 2.7 mile trail (USFS trail 368); 5500 feet elevation at the trail head, 6922 feet at the lookout. Probably not the best place for someone who sleepwalks.

We have had snow in the Glacier Park area, the Missions and I heard now on some of the peaks around this area. Next week I hope to be hiking in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness again and there should be snow on those peaks too.

I think most of it will stay high for that long, but there will likely be an inch or two that will make it into the valleys here.
You can barely see those mountains in the third photo, and in the fourth, I gave it about all the zoom I had. They were about 50 miles away.

Goodness, what breathtaking views – and the first snow! I can’t believe it. But we have also had snow in the Cairngorms. That view from the cabin is just spectacular. I don’t think I’d ever want to go back down!

We had snow on Mount Washington the other day too, so it’s cooling off in the upper atmosphere. As soon as I saw those cables I knew that you had visited a very windy place. They use huge ship anchor chains on the buildings on Mt. Washington-or at least they did the last time I was up there. That shot with the cabin in the distance shows what you had to go through to get there. Quite a hike!

It is approximately 13 miles NW of Plains, Montana. (Montana Meridian, SW1/4, Section 4, T.49N, R.27W)
The lookout is about a quarter of a mile east of Big Hole Peak, placed there for a better view to the south and east.

Yes, that’s a great view. In the state of Montana, 626 mountains had, at one time or another, a fire lookout cabin on their tops, all chosen for greatest visibility. Only several cabins remain, but most of the old pack trails to the peaks still remain and provide excellent hiking opportunities. Most have relatively little traffic.

I know you would enjoy a stay at a lookout. I understand that they book a long time in advance.

Through this blog I met the man who manned this lookout during the summer of 1966. We have become good friends and in fact, we will be hiking together most of next week in this general area, hopefully in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness as well. We both love these high places!

If you have never been to one, you owe it to yourself. There is nothing else like it. You can drive right to some of them too, for example the one on Cougar Peak that I posted about last summer. The cabins give you shelter if the weather gets wild and keep the wildlife on the outside of the walls if those are concerns.

Yes, this is a beautiful place in which to live for anyone who loves the outdoors. There are hundreds of trails like this one in just this single National Forest. It’s free to anyone and there are excellent maps. This lookout site is one of 636 such sites in Montana, some more spectacular than others, but all worth seeing. This summer I have broken some new ground to the northwest of here and have enjoyed it thoroughly. Next week I hope to explore three or four new places in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness.

The first snow….I’m getting ready! Last year we had our first snow in October, don’t know what will transpire this year. Our leaves are just starting to turn and I’m hopeful for a lovely fall (my favorite). As always, your photos are so beautiful. 🙂

We are really looking forward to fall colors this year. Fall is my wife’s favorite time of the year and we had a very dull colored autumn last year. So far it looks as though this year will be much better.